Five years ago today folks I married Bill, on the 49th anniversary of our meeting.
On that rainy, summer night in Philadelphia I was standing alone by the bartender Jerry Hawes at the Westbury Bar in Philly. Jerry pushed a gin and tonic in front of me. I looked up and he turned his head and nodded in the direction of a man standing on the other side of the bar, in front of the juke box and skeet ball game machine.
The Westbury Bar was my regular hangout on Saturday night when I went trolling the gay bars looking for my Prince Charming. I usually went with my friends Ed Cage and Ron Hampton but this night, for some reason I was alone. I don't remember why.
This wasn't the first night that man had sent a drink over my way. In fact he had done it many times before over the past three months. I always acknowledge the gesture with a nod of my head but I never went over to actually talk to him. You see, he wasn't my "type." He was very popular in the bar, usually playing skeet ball with his many friends. While I considered him attractive, he really wasn't my type physically and besides, I wasn't about to be another notch on his gun of conquest. During my brief year or so of coming out to gay bars, I had been approached more than few times by over confident older gay men who were just out for a one night stand. I was looking for more. I was looking to fall in love and spend my life with the Man of My Dreams. My Prince Charming. Mr. Right. And that man wasn't it. Besides, he was SOO old (35 years to my 22 years).
But on this muggy, quiet night in the Westbury, attendance probably down because of the intermittent rain outside, I decided the least I could do was go over and thank him for all the drinks. At that time I was just beginning my adult working career and living on limited funds. I usually only took three dollars with me to the bar to buy a seventy-five cent gin and tonic. Of course I would tell the bartender to "keep the change". Once I spent my three dollars I was out of the bar. My search for my prince done for the night. But being the nice guy that I am (tongue in cheek folks, don't take me seriously and leave a nasty comment) I decided to walk around the bar and thank this man.
As I rounded the bar and approached him, he looked up in bemusement and surprise. After all those drinks he had sent to me over the last three months, he probably never expected to reel me in.
I said to him "Thank you for the drink." He replied "You're welcome."
I was pleasantly surprised by the tone of his voice. It was deep and masculine. Unlike my voice which has a higher, adolescent tone and definitely not "gay sounding" (please don't take offense my "gay sounding" friends but you know what I'm talking about). What my friend (who eventually was a witness at our wedding) called "talking gay." She asked me once, "Why don't you and Bill talk gay?" I assured her that not all men "talk gay." She was somewhat surprised by this revelation but I digress.
When I decided to go over and thank Bill for the drinks, I didn't intend to stay but I found his personality so appealing, that I stayed. He was (and is) nice. He wasn't an ogre like some of the older gay men I had the misfortune to meet in the past. He wasn't out to just "notch another one up." He was different. Thus began our friendship.
Over the next six months Bill saw each other every weekend. He lived in Pennsuaken, New Jersey and I lives in Coatesville, Pennsylvania, fifty-one miles away or about an hour's drive one-way. After his workday on Friday Bill would drive the one hour drive to pick me up at my furnished, efficiency apartment in Coatesville and drive me back to his garden apartment in Pennsauken, New Jersey. He did this almost every weekend from July to February. I think he only missed three weekends and that was because he had to work. Now who else would do that for me?
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| Bill and me at his apartment in Pennsauken, New Jersey - 1964 |
Then came a time when Bill wanted me to move in with him. I was reluctant because, even though I liked Bill, he still wasn't "my type" physically. Oh yes, the Folly of Youth being sho shallow-minded. I didn't want to be restricted. But Bill didn't give up. He said "I would never restrict you. You can have all the freedom you want, all I ask is that you be discreet." And that folks is the secret of our relationship over the past fifty-four years.
I got a job with a major bank in Philly and moved in with Bill at the end of February 1965.
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| Bill and I on the rooftop at our townhouse in center city Philadelphia 1976 |
Over the next fifteen years we settled down into the normal routine of a gay couple, or as "normal" as a gay couple could be in those pre-Stonewall days. Then came a time in 1980 I met Somebody. I thought I finally met my Prince Charming. Handsome, talented, kind, and sexy. Oh yes. I was going to leave Bill. I told Bill I had finally met Mr. Right. As I prepared to leave, and I remember clearly where I told Bill, it was outside near the row of day lilies that lined our driveway to our dream house in the Pennsylvania countryside.
Bill turned away from me after I gave him the news but then turned back and said "Please don't leave me." I was prepared for this but much to my surprise I realized I couldn't leave him. I mean, I COULDN'T LEAVE HIM. Why, because I loved him. Yes, I had grown to love him over the years and could not imagine my life without him in it. I tried to picture me with Prince Charming (who, by the way turned out not to be the Prince Charming after all but that's another whole story), and I couldn't fathom the thought of thinking about where Bill would be. I just could not imagine my life without Bill in it.
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| Bill gets emotional on our wedding day in July 3, 2013 - aren't I the one who is supposed to get emotional? |
And now we are here today, fifty-four years after I met Bill. Bill will be ninety years old this year. I'll be seventy-seven. I would never have imagined that back on that rainy July night in Philly fifty-four years ago that I would love this man all these years later. But I do.
Now that we both are in our declining years, health issues sometimes that threaten to overtake us at times, I still would never leave Bill. He needs me and I live him.
I met my Prince Charming all those years ago, I just didn't know it.
Happy anniversary Bill!
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| Me and Bill outside the courthouse in Georgetown, Delaware where we got married. Now we start a whole new chapter in our lives. |
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| Me and Bill together today - together forever |
Note: Portulaca, Bill's favorite flower of all time!
